Yes, I think it was Wilmslow where I spotted some nice ribbon tweeters a while back.
Here's my sub anyway, I never "finished" the finish, hence it's patchy underneath and I didn't do anything with the filled screw holes. In hindsight, I should have had it pinned together instead. I'm considering doing the whole thing in high-gloss piano black, but I'll lose the lovely birch pattern then. I'll list details after the photos. BTW - ignore the horrible carpet + desk, I was in a student house at that point
Specs are as follows (if I remember correctly!):-
•650W RMS Adire Audio "Shiva" Mk3 12" sub, wired 4 ohm parallel. Very high quality, dual voice coil for multiple configurations, huge peak-to-peak xmax of 31.6mm. Cost ~£150 imported from the states.
•Detonator DT300 sub amp (class D, 300W into 4 ohms, 0.1% THD) with variable HF cut off. Quite a good amp, solid power, again around £150. Would have preferred a MOSFET amp of some description, but couldn't afford.
•Double-flared reflex port, forget the length it was cut to but basically it's tuned to 22Hz and obviously wide enough so there is no "chuffing". I block the port for most music to tighten the sound a bit, and unleash it every so often depending on what I'm listening to. DnB in particular sounds awesome with it!
•25mm birch-faced ply cabinet, 96L volume, fully braced wall-to-wall inside for maximum strength (ie. not just a box), filled with well... cotton wool really.
•Little rubber feet!
Think that's covered everything. The driver weighs a ton on its own, but together the entire unit is about 40kg! It needs to be really - no point using 10mm chipboard! It's surprising how much difference the solidity makes - I've heard reports of people putting granite slabs on top to really smoothen the response, with the bonus of a unique design! Below is a computer generated amplitude response graph for the sub with 300W input (this is purely emulated on amplification, sensitivity, box volume & reflex tuning only - it doesn't take into account the actual response of the driver, but the pressure levels will be very similar, probably a bit higher in-room). In reality, the graph would follow the general line, but be a bit more rocky, and would have sharp fall off after about 250Hz. Note the output level at 20Hz though! I've run a frequency generator with 15Hz through it - I couldn't hear it, but everything was rattling! It's not so much the power of thing anyway, it's the effortless way it pounds it out on multiple frequencies. It's very hard to catch it out. You wouldn't believe how much music you're missing without one - hidden sub-basslines, extra depth on bass drums etc.
Anyway, my idea for these ribbon tweeter based speakers is to have one of these each side, but in a smaller, sealed enclosure for a tighter sound. They're not like car subs - these are actually quite musical and well suited to true hifi applications. Man, it would be heaven!
Wow, typed more than I expected there. Sorry for the thread hijack!
Here's my sub anyway, I never "finished" the finish, hence it's patchy underneath and I didn't do anything with the filled screw holes. In hindsight, I should have had it pinned together instead. I'm considering doing the whole thing in high-gloss piano black, but I'll lose the lovely birch pattern then. I'll list details after the photos. BTW - ignore the horrible carpet + desk, I was in a student house at that point
Specs are as follows (if I remember correctly!):-
•650W RMS Adire Audio "Shiva" Mk3 12" sub, wired 4 ohm parallel. Very high quality, dual voice coil for multiple configurations, huge peak-to-peak xmax of 31.6mm. Cost ~£150 imported from the states.
•Detonator DT300 sub amp (class D, 300W into 4 ohms, 0.1% THD) with variable HF cut off. Quite a good amp, solid power, again around £150. Would have preferred a MOSFET amp of some description, but couldn't afford.
•Double-flared reflex port, forget the length it was cut to but basically it's tuned to 22Hz and obviously wide enough so there is no "chuffing". I block the port for most music to tighten the sound a bit, and unleash it every so often depending on what I'm listening to. DnB in particular sounds awesome with it!
•25mm birch-faced ply cabinet, 96L volume, fully braced wall-to-wall inside for maximum strength (ie. not just a box), filled with well... cotton wool really.
•Little rubber feet!
Think that's covered everything. The driver weighs a ton on its own, but together the entire unit is about 40kg! It needs to be really - no point using 10mm chipboard! It's surprising how much difference the solidity makes - I've heard reports of people putting granite slabs on top to really smoothen the response, with the bonus of a unique design! Below is a computer generated amplitude response graph for the sub with 300W input (this is purely emulated on amplification, sensitivity, box volume & reflex tuning only - it doesn't take into account the actual response of the driver, but the pressure levels will be very similar, probably a bit higher in-room). In reality, the graph would follow the general line, but be a bit more rocky, and would have sharp fall off after about 250Hz. Note the output level at 20Hz though! I've run a frequency generator with 15Hz through it - I couldn't hear it, but everything was rattling! It's not so much the power of thing anyway, it's the effortless way it pounds it out on multiple frequencies. It's very hard to catch it out. You wouldn't believe how much music you're missing without one - hidden sub-basslines, extra depth on bass drums etc.
Anyway, my idea for these ribbon tweeter based speakers is to have one of these each side, but in a smaller, sealed enclosure for a tighter sound. They're not like car subs - these are actually quite musical and well suited to true hifi applications. Man, it would be heaven!
Wow, typed more than I expected there. Sorry for the thread hijack!
Sound can be delicate? Sound quality just isn't measured in watts, watts are effectively meaningless really. I don't know much about Hi-Fi's and sound quality but I know enough to say that an Aiwa Hi-Fi that 'has' a 1000 watts RMS is gonna sound pretty crap compared to some Hi-Fi Seperates and some decent speakers for a similar price.
